Phillips: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed . . . Wait a minute! Someone's crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be . . .- The War of the Worlds (1938)

BC keeps getting emails about this notice of proposed development, which claims that the vacant site at 437-439 Brockley Road is going to be turned into a Romany holiday camp. To be clear, it's a hoax.

As Paul, who sent us this photo, points out "There seems to be precedent for fake European Roma housing planning notices - but quite who would go to this length to foment prejudicial NIMBYism, I dunno."

To be fair to the good folk of Brockley, most of the interest it's stoked seems to be of the bemused variety, rather than the pitchfork-wielding sort. And to be fair to the hoaxer, they seem to be trying to make some sort of satirical point, rather than to dupe people - after all, it's filed in the name of Jo King.

Whether it's an attempt to reveal the raging bigotry that lurks beneath the thin veneer of bourgeois Brockley or whether it's a joke about how even this would be more palatable than the prospect of Tesco (who've taken an interest in the site), we don't know. But if Jo is out there and wants to explain themselves, the floor is yours.